The Powai police arrested eight men including the sales agent of a private bank for allegedly cheating credit card holders of lakhs of rupees.

The Powai police arrested eight men including the sales agent of a private bank for allegedly cheating credit card holders of lakhs of rupees.

They identified the prime accused as Raj Solaskar (29), who has earlier worked with two other private banks. Rahul Tiwari (23), Sunny Nikumbh (29), Prashant Shinde (26), Sudhir Kutty (38), Vishal Sawant (22), Zuber Siddiqui (23) and Kanhaiyalal Gupta are the other accused.

The police said the case came to light when Delhi-based businesswoman Kumud Khanna and Navi Mumbai-based Emin Umar were cheated of Rs 5.4 lakh using their credit cards. “The bank lodged a complaint at Powai police station on May 15,” said senior Police Inspector Ashok Jadhav of Powai police station.

Based on a tip-off, they first arrested Shinde, who revealed Solaskar’s name. Investigators learnt through his cellphone records that he had made at least 474 calls to Tiwari, who worked as a Direct Sales Agent with an associate company of the bank. The two were later arrested.

The interrogation revealed that Tiwari would supply credit card customers’ data to Solaskar, whose accomplices would first call the bank’s call centre to ‘update’ the bank on changes in customers’ cellphone numbers. Ten days later, they’d call again, to notify the call centre of an ‘address change’.

Finally, about a week later, they’d call the call centre saying the card had been lost, and ask for a new card at the newly updated address.

They would take delivery of the new card at the new address, and use the card to illegally withdraw cash.

In case of women card holders, the accused took the help of prostitutes to speak with the call centre executive.